Friday, March 31, 2006

(warning am typing one handed so Torbenspang can drool on my other hand as he watches the screen)

the other day I was innocently watching tv when an ad came on and started with "don't you wish you could lose those unwanted kilos just by changing your eating habits?" Oddly enough this wasn't a community service announcement to remind us of the basic principal of eat less kilojoules than you use. No, it was an ad for some hideous meal replacement milkshakey things. you know the type, just replace every meal with these delicious nutritious shakes and the fat will just melt away!I get very annoyed with these type of ads (don't even get me started on the product)Begin with something obvious and hope people don't notice what your selling is crap. Gatorade annoyed me with their 3hour ads that had a scientician talking about how kids need to be kept hydrated whilst playing sport and wuldn't ya know it, but gatorade's just full of hydrating stuff. My other favourite the add for ham in little convenient sachets that's gluten free. Can anyone actually tell me why they need to point this out. Is all other ham laden with gluten? Can I buy gluten that's ham free?And that's my rant for the day!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

I went to the Newtown IGA to get some essentials of life. Namely: food.But, lo! Firefly DVDs are on sale there!So I bought a set.Not that I'm complaining, but what the hell is going on? The Other Andrew might have written threatening letters to the council demanding greater access to Firefly? Angry Little Man is also a local and may have had a hand in it.

Monday, March 27, 2006

The day is drawing near when the mighty combined forces of the Lemmings, Loonies and the other ones will once again go forth for glory, honour, smiting and many, many 'no shit there we were...' stories to be told and re-told around the campfires for years to come.But a army is not born, it is forged.

And a mighty forging was had.

Only the true weapons masters were called forth to create and fine tune the very instruments that may mean life or doom on the field.

Tactics discussed, strategies revealed. For the unit must be as one for sucess.

The next generation was prepped and found ready.

Advanced weapons testing, is always a key to victory

The excitment for the coming fray was palpable. Who could not but feel the thrill and stir in the blood.

Friday, March 24, 2006

I ordered Civilisation 3 Complete (Mac edition) from a certain (well established, I thought) online computer games retailer recently. Actually, not so frigging recently since payment was finalised February 9th. Four emails and one phone message about the unfulfilled status of this order went unacknowleged so I trekked out to their offices in fracking Rockdale today.

so those ads about what Jesus said making sense really shit me. I'm not denying he may have had some moments of clarity, but then you could say the same about many people. Frinstance Pliny the Elder, Caesar, Sappho, Ovid, Marcus Aurelius, Akhenaten, and a host of other historical figures. Then I started to think of other examples you could use (can you tell I was on a trip to Canberra and the radio wasn't working?).

I came up with 'I'm not into warfare, but a lot of what Sun Tzu said makes sense''I'm not into Buddhism, but a lot of what Buddha said makes sense''I'm not into world peace but a lot of what Gandhi said makes sense' etc.

Then I started to get controversial. I wondered what the reaction would be to a woman or man of middle eastern appearance doing an ad saying 'I'm not into religion but a lot of what Mohammed said makes sense'. I imagine that would get a few complaints.

Or I'm not into mass starvation but a lot of what Mao said makes sense, I'm not into genocide but a lot of what Pol Pot said makes sense. Even, I'm not into Nazism but a lot of what Hitler said was still complete crap.

Unfortunately I don't think I can complain to the advertising standards board just because the ads annoy me. Typical religious ads, no unnecessary nudity or swearing that could get them banned. Bastards.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

The activity of 'going have a wee' - that of standing up and urinating like a real man - is evidently a new thing for Charlie, judging by the response of the parents, Mindy and D. They are delighted!This probably explains Charlie's eagerness to share this experience with everyone. He had a wee with his dad at lunch and then topped off the day with a wee with me.I had already finished doing Mindy a favour by enriching the pile of topsoil, when I heard the little snot-covered one approaching. I hung around in a purely supervisory role and supervised him getting most of it on the ground. Then he ran off to receive, no doubt, more parental accolades.

I don't remember when all I had to do to impress my father was to have a wee, but oh what halcyon days they must have been! Callooo! Callay! It got harder to impress him pretty quickly; to the point where he was forced to give up on me.The conversation went thusly:

Father: Have you completed a university education?h: No.F: Do you have a high paying, stable, full-time job?h: No.F: Have you married a fecund woman?h: No.F: Well what the blazes *have* you done?h: I've had three wees so far today.F: *splutter*h: Normally I'd have only done two by now!F: So what?!h: Well it means production is up fifty percent! I'm doing better than BHP! ...Hello? ....I... hello?

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Now this is an ad I wouldn't mind seeing my tax dollars pay for. (Actually, no; I would still be pissed off by using my tax to fund political rhetoric, I'd just agree with the rhetoric. Fortunately, thats not an issue... and the parody is kinda funny, in a sick sort of way.)

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Last year Aussie hiphop band The Herd did a cover of Red Gum's 'I was Only 19" for Triple J'ssegement Like A Version. It warmed to me after a few listens. Even though i had not heard the original for years i could always quotes the lines

'And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep?And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet?And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?God help me, I was only nineteen'

Not that i have a clue about war but those lyrics conjour up alot of empathy and feelings. Thats the key to good song writing i guess, in very few words get your audience to feel for a situation or emotion that may be foreign to them.

I do like the original a little bit more, but i'm more a bush ballard gal than a hiphop one. Its gotten very popular and its great that John Schumann, who wrote it, is completely behind their version, (he sings towards the end of the video)Last week on Hack (triple j's current affair slot), they did a story on the making of the video. Interviewing the band, the writer, Vietnam vets and children of those vets.The shame that they were made to feel upon returning boggles the mind. I don't know anyone who went. My Dad, a fit young bushman volunteered twice but never went, which for his sake and ours i'm so very grateful for.

If he'd filed for copyright infringement or defamation like anyone else I'm not sure I'd have any beef, but the fact that he just off-handedly uses the governments power for purely personal ends shits me. Be sure to click on the link down the bottom for the PDF version of the website that got banned... you don't have to read it, but click the link anyways just to let them know that their censorship failed utterly.

Monday, March 13, 2006

If you know Infected Mushroom, then you already know everything.But I'm going to tell you anyway.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

The place was pumping, full of the clubbing social elite, the hardcore Infected fans, the black Goths, the brightly coloured party Goths, and the die hard Doof crowd. Total melting pot and totally lovely - it was all about the music. Israeli psytrance at its absolute best. Everyone hungering for the beats that drive your blood and the euphoria of total mind control.Shangri-La came on, and the energy in the room jumped to a new level. Mostly I remember dancing like a maniac and watching the laser show from the balcony above the stage - lines of light scything through the air, cutting through the smoke making patterns like world maps, snakes of electricity writhing on the heads of the crowd. I was tripping out of my skull and I hadn't taken anything. Yet. I am very rarely tempted to go chemical and I haven't had anything in nearly a year and a half because the comedowns write me off for days, but I thought this year's Infected warranted an exception to the rule. I'd been a little low earlier but Shangri-La was the perfect set and it picked up my mood to dizzy happiness, and I decided to fly for all I was worth.

An hour later when Infected came out the Boy and I looked at each other and raced down stairs. Sure you get a better view from the mezzanine and there was more room up there, but the sheer energy of the sound and the tribal mind of the crowd being conducted, literally conducted, by the main guy are just too compelling. You've just got to be in amongst the frenzy.Then over the drone of near subliminal bass, silence descended.The guitar sang, and screamed, and cried - toyed with us, with the thousands of minds starving for the music we knew would come.The beats rolled in and the tension grew, and the grins widened, and they wound us up, and wound us up, and up and up... hold it... Ready? And scream! They dropped that first beat, the room took off and my brain exploded. Mind control? Abso-fucking-lutely! The music literally takes over your limbs and you have no choice but to move. And the man is up the front like the puppet master with thousands of people utterly in his grip. You'd be a fool to resist it because it is just too good.

At the end of the set, everyone is simply knackered because it is so emotionally exhausting being picked up and wound up and fired into space over and over again. Physically draining and mentally fatiging and yet so damn good! Yup, it's a two hour mass orgy and a half...

It is the forth time I'm seen them now, and it is the highlight of the year. March is now Mushroom Month as much as Boxing Day ever became LOTR Day.

When they finally shuffled us out of there, we walked from the warm fug of the cavern out into the new dawn. Darling Harbour was an amazing sight and the waterfront was lined with the bodies of the night before, looking like the Monday morning dregs of a doof, dirty and smiling and wondering why it's so damn quite all of a sudden. I love that feeling - it's a strange release.Once home and showered, I went to sleep to the sounds of ABC Classic FM's "Life is Beautiful" cd. It was like a balm for the soul. And perfect.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Ob and I went to see The Amazing Human Body show today. Usually the mirror is enough but we thought we would go further afield.It was pretty amazing. 400 bits and pieces and 20 whole bodies, showing muscles, veins and organs in all thier ooogly glory. They have been 'plastinated', and looked real but didn't at the same time. It was kinda weird. The eyes were the spookiest bit.They had several examples of soft tissue preservation. They inject arteries and the such with plastic, let it harden then remove the organic tissue so you are left with a coloured cast. It looks like coral.There was a body sliced into 200 1cm thick slices and mounted with spaces so you could see into the cross sections.There were a lot of kids there, which was good to see, but i wonder how many nightmares there will be in the next few days....?It only goes till April 2nd, so if you get a chance, go see it.

We then had a nice bike ride thru the Olympic Park...its a very cool place, lots of interesting things.We saw a few people tooling around on these rather pointless things. Cracked me up, and anyone who as seen the most excellent 'Arrested Development' will know why.

Stopped off at the Homebush Bay Brewary, thinking maybe they do their own beer. They don't, and i wouldn't really bother.$4.50 for a plastic cup of New...pfft

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The Smoking Gun, has a big collection of mug shots from the famous to the mudane. I have spent a fair bit of time looking at the faces and reading their stories. Its more compelling than you would think.Frankie, for carrying on with a married woman

Monday, March 06, 2006

There are a few days a year which stop me from going totally postal at work. I think they recognise the signs now and quickly let me out for a day or two in the sun.

Today i spent most of it wearing these

Total GrandDad pants, even my nipples were waterproof.

Armed with this

All we know is that there is still is no contact with the colony, and that a xenomorph may be involved.

Hunting these

Excuse me sir, a what?

When really in my own little exciting world, it was more like this

Though with better hair

Armed with this

A xenomorph.

Hunting these

It's a bughunt

Its my daydream, and i'm sure you all have your own...

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces....Sigmund Freud:

I so have to finish this @$&$#@&#?$ PhD and get out of here, the university is about to go totally and utterly insane and this VSU debacle is making it painful to watch!Last year, in response to the impending threat of VSU, they brought in the Access card - a card separate from the student card that declares membership to the student union and thus eligible for discounts e.g. a 300 mL thing of milk cost 70cents, as opposed to 90cents. The point was to illustrate to holders how much they actually did use the Union.

This year, it's gone mental. Photo cards with a barcode and a magnetic strip, mass advert campaigns for Union use. And it is all going to go so abysmally wrong, ideologically if not financially.

The Union and the University are both profiteering to an insane degree which means either the organisations are going to go under thanks to student rebellion, or the ideology of student life is going to end up totally dissipated, because it is now far cheaper to get all student-type stuff (food stationary alcohol milk pharmacy photos) at the normal shopping centre which is all of 3 min walk from campus.The uni bar is now the most expensive place to buy beer unless it is happy hour, unless you have a Union member card in which case it is exactly the same price as every other pub in the area, but with no atmosphere and no service and massively overpriced gig tickets. Normal DnBBQ at the Abercrombie = $15 tix and $9.50 jugs of Saint Arnu. Once-off DnBBQ at Manning Bar = $22.50 and $11 jugs of Squires if you're a member, $27.50 and $13 jugs of squires if you're not. Argh!A 300 mL thing of milk cost me a dollar this morning, with a card. $0.95 for 300 mL of normal fricken milk!

So tell me, should a policy of overcharge massively so that you can charge students normal prices and tell them they're getting a 15% discount work?I am afraid it will, if only because the majority of the captive student body are too damn apathetic to walk off campus and find out for themselves how much they are being rorted, unless they were here the past two years. If you don't know any different, you're not going to complain. Much.

You scored as Deep Space Nine (Star Trek). You have entered the dark side of the Star Trek universe. The paradise of Earth is far from you and you must survive despite having enemies on all fronts. But you wouldn't have it any other way because you thrive in conflict and will know what needs to be done to take care of those around you. Now if only the Founders would quit trying to take over the galaxy.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Ages ago i heard the soundtrack of a Broadway puppet musical called Avenue Q- think Seasame Street Meets The Feebles. (thanks Megs and Harry) Its a total hoot and i hope it comes out here, though don't take the kiddies.There is a song called The Internet is for P0rn, horribly catchy and you will find yourself singing it at work, trust me.Some geeks have made a little video to it with emoting WOW Horde characters...very cute.^the Horde the Horde the Horde the Horde *deep breath* the Horde The Horde The Horde...all together now...^

Despite media and popular beliefs i have much more in my life than just WOW. Work and gym and washing up and poking the ferret and leveling Weatherwax my Troll shaman to 40 and ...awww crap...nevermind